


Peace

by Flirty_Banana



Series: Summer Breeze [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Angst With A Bittersweet Ending, I had more gay planned but I chickened out at the end, It's a bit gay here too, Major character death - Freeform, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Original work - Freeform, Other, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 04:04:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18003470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flirty_Banana/pseuds/Flirty_Banana
Summary: He stares at the reflection in the water, a young face stares back at him. Too wide, disgustingly bright eyes gleam on the waters surface. Too innocent to belong to him.How many lifetimes had it been since he’s fallen this far? Hundreds? Or was it more like thousands?Honestly, at this point he could care less.





	Peace

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final installment of the Summer Breeze series! Thank you so much if you've come this far, it means a lot to me.

It was like a nightmare that eventually faded into a dream. As he fell for a millennia, the blood, the hatred, the despair, the tears, the pain, the frustration, it began to blur together, mixing across his vision in a swirl of bloody red and muddled black. 

What once was a nightmare had turned into a blissful reprieve, and he can’t help but smile as he tumbles through time. He can feel the cracks in his soul, the webs of long, thin wounds that have gradually spread through him as he tears through the fabric of nature itself.

The threads of Fate hang torn and flaming in smoldering embers. The gears of Time rusted and broken on the floor of Destiny’s clocktower.

___________________________

He’s gone numb. 

Eventually he lost sight of his goal, instead, resigned, fury nestled into his being.

Fury at the world.

Resignation at being able to do nothing, but sit back and let it happen.

Fury at his own useless self

Resignation because he knows no matter what, he can’t stop it. Isn’t able to.

But he made a promise, and he intends to keep it.

And tiredly, he’s dragged under.

___________________________

He stares at the reflection in the water, a young face stares back at him. Too wide, disgustingly bright eyes gleam on the waters surface. Too innocent to belong to him. 

How many lifetimes had it been since he’s fallen this far? Hundreds? Or was it more like thousands?  
Honestly, at this point he could care less. 

The warm breeze feels chilling on his skin, and the scent of summer smells putrid and ashen. 

He can hear their footsteps coming closer, their feet clumsy with inexperience as the tromp through the woods. 

He can’t do this.

He can’t bare to look upon them with innocence in their eyes, and life still breathed into them.  
Especially when he’s been the one to strip it away, in so many life times. Distantly he hears someone screaming, oh, he realizes numbly, that’s me.

But at this point he could care less, he’s fed up with this. This repeated failure, this building despair, this fading body. So he lets himself scream as loud as his soul desires, lets the tears pour from his heart and down his face and neck. And when his body tips forward and falls,

He lets it. 

Doesn’t bother to try to kick to the surface, doesn’t bother to try to hold what little breath is left in his lungs. 

He just keeps screaming. 

He just keeps crying. 

And as his vision darkens, and his lungs burst, he feels his fury grow, stretching its bonds desperately for freedom, before it sags in resignation.

He’s dragged under again.

 

__________________________

He’s just tired now. He just wants to sleep forever, drift in darkness for eternity.

__________________________

Below them the fires rage, around them the wind whips across their skin. Adrian is before him, standing precariously close to the edge of the ship, glaive at his side. Behind Caspian stands Celestine, to scared to help him and to loyal to attack him. They’re on the roof of Adrian’s war ship as it hovers, overlooking the battle between the Followers and the meager few of the Resistance. 

Caspian feels a dull sort of pride at this, he managed to keep them alive longer this time.

He takes a step towards Adrian, and then another. There is no rush, he has all the time in the world.  
Adrian faces him, they’re bodies now only inches apart form the other, and there is a strange glint in his eyes. 

“I remember you.” 

Caspian feels a very heavy sense of deja vu as he remembers the last time Adrian said those words to him. That would explain the strange look in his eyes. It wasn’t annoyance at his existence, it was remembrance. 

“I remember what you did, what you will do, what you have done. For us.”

Caspian feels a bit breathless as Adrian leans down, pressing his forehead to his own. 

“You’ve said that to me before.” 

“I know.” 

Adrian smiles, fingers coming up under Caspian’s chin to keep his eyes focused on him, his other hand wraps around Caspian’s wrist, the one that loosely clutches his last dagger. 

The screaming of battle seems to fade into the background, and the bloody rays of the setting sun reflect all around them.

“Im so sorry, my dearest friend.” The words shake Caspian to his core, briefly lifting his numb haze just enough to feel the absolute weight of what is happening right now. His eyes widen and his breath hitches in his throat. 

Those words shouldn’t come from Adrian’s mouth. 

Such a soft expression shouldn’t be in the eyes of someone like Adrian. 

His shock keeps him stationary as Adrian’s hold tightens on his wrist, pulling the dagger perpendicular to his diaphragm. 

“You’ve suffered enough, haven’t you?” 

Yes. 

“And it’s been all my fault.” 

No, I made a promise. 

Caspian opens his mouth to tell him as such, but Adrian’s nose nuzzling into his hair makes him freeze up all over again. 

He remembers him doing this. He did this often for all three of them, when they were sad, or scared, or angry. He remembers Adrian doing this to him in his youth, when he woke from night terrors, or when he found him crying after-

Adrian nuzzles into him again, “You think too much. I remember that to.” Caspian sends him an annoyed look and Adrian’s head tips back and he laughs. “I really am sorry you know.” His hands tighten around Caspian’s hand again, tugging the dangerously closer. Caspian freezes.

No.

“I really-“

Don’t do this.

“Should have listened to you-“

Don’t disappear.

“Cassy.”

Caspian begins to shake his head, attempting to pull his hand from the others grasp. But Adrian has always been stronger. Stronger and bigger than him, and he simply smiles as he struggles futilely 

“Live” He says. “You made a promise before, and now I want you to make another one.” 

Caspian feels desperation well inside of him as Adrian pulls his arm towards him, wrapping his free arm around his shoulders tightly, and pulling him close as the dagger plunges up and into him. 

Warm blood trickles down Caspian’s hand and wrist, as he stares up into Adrian’s face, a thin, stream of blood drips from Adrian’s mouth. 

A gentle smile is on his lips the whole time.

“Live, prosper, and thrive. If anyone can rebuild this world, it’s you Cassy.” 

Adrian’s nose descends upon him one last time, it misses, and instead smears warm blood across his forehead. “I’m so sorry, Cassy” he rasps around the blood now pooling in his mouth, “I should have listened to you.”

Caspian feels the exact moment that Adrian sags, watches in stunned horror as he falls back, plummeting over the edge of the war ship and towards the ground. 

Caspian prepares himself to fall again. For time and space to warp around him and drag him back. 

Only to realize…

That’s not going to happen.

__________________________________

The screams of battle have fallen silent and the angry shrieks of the Followers are drowned out by the cheers of victory. 

Caspian stares numbly, eyes open but unseeing. Celestine is behind him. A broken shade of what she once was. “I suppose peace will return?” Her voice is quiet, resigned. “It won’t be a happy sort of peace.” She continues. “To many precious things lost.” 

She’s right. And he has already excepted this.

“It’s a tired sort of resigned peace. As if the hatred couldn’t expand and feed anymore, so it just sort of disappeared with lack of anything left to hate.” She finishes. 

The fury is gone too, he realizes tiredly, it’s not been appeased or put out by righteous justice, It just has nothing left to burn. 

There really is nothing left to come back to.

Just broken things, and the dried tears left on your cheeks.

Celestine steps closer to him, and together they look out at the sun setting over a tired day. The moon ready to wash away victory screams and teary congratulations, and lift it’s heavy, stifling blanket of waking terrors, and grief over the land.

He finishes it for her. “It’s the kind of peace where you fought a battle, you knew you wouldn’t win, for too long. Lost too much. And now there’s nothing left to return to.”

Caspian feels a warm breeze kiss his skin, the impossible sweet smell of grass blowing in with it across this barren, dead land.

Summer is here.

~END

**Author's Note:**

> I know the ending was a bit sad, a bit cliche, but I liked it. I am just so proud of myself for actually finishing this series. I originally planned on posting this tomorrow, or even the next day, but I started editing the beginning part I had already started aaaaaaand...yeah. Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end! I know I say this an obnoxious amount, but it really does mean a lot to me.


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